Sunday, August 17, 2008

Gen Con Debriefed!

What a weekend! Well after all these years, I'm delighted to say that my trip to Gen Con still managed to defy my expectations. After flying into Indianapolis on Thursday night it was pretty much all gaming, all the time (with a little bit of dedicating boozing with my best friend the bachelor). No sooner had I arrived at the airport than my cell phone was ringing:

"Tom! Where are you?"

"Uh, the terminal?"

"Want to play D&D in an hour?"

"Sure?"

Less than forty-five minutes later I was in the massive Sagamore Ballroom at the Indiana Convention Center with several hundred of my fellow convention-goers, funny dice in hand and hastily rigged character ready to adventure.

Four grueling hours later, I was whisked away to one of downtown Indy's microbreweries with the extended gaming group, which included myriad people whom I'd never met but was instantly befriended by. This would be a pattern at Gen Con - you make new friends at every table and leave at the end of your time together with the handshakes of battle-tested comrades. It's a fun easygoing ethos, and you wonder we we all can't be more like this all the time.

After beers we head back to our hotel, whose lobbies are overflowing with pickup games of all sorts - roleplaying games, board games, miniatures games, you name it. We stake out an empty table and drink a growler of beer from the bar while playing Last Night on Earth, a zombie board game which is easy to play and fun enough to keep us up until 3am or thereabouts, at which point we retire to our rooms, crash, and start the cycle anew the next morning. Repeat for 1d4 days.